Anonymous Leaks FBI, Scotland Yard Call About Hackers

Hacker collective Anonymous this week leaked a phone call between the FBI and U.K. law enforcement where officials are heard discussing the cases of Anonymous members who have been arrested for various hacks.

Hacker collective Anonymous this week leaked a phone call between the FBI and U.K. law enforcement where officials are heard discussing the cases of Anonymous members who have been arrested for various hacks.

The call, which took place on Jan. 17, included representatives from FBI headquarters and the agency's Los Angeles field office, as well as officials from Scotland Yard. An email with the call-in details, which was posted to Pastebin, said agents would "discuss the on-going investigations related to Anonymous, Lulzsec, =
Antisec, and other associated splinter groups."

The call opens with FBI and Scotland Yard officials joking about the lack of entertainment in Sheffield, England, the site of an upcoming security event. SSA Timothy F. Lauster, Jr. with the FBI then joins the call and asks for an update about ongoing calls.

The London team tells Lauster that they had Ryan Cleary and Jake Davis due in court on Jan. 27. Cleary was arrested in June 2011 for helping organize and carry out distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against the U.K.'s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). Davis was arrested soon after, in connection with the hacks of SOCA, Sony, and News Corp.-owned newspaper Web sites.

Scotland Yard has "Ryan Cleary's indecent images," the official says. "We'll propose that they get dealt with first."

The agency also has a forensic report on Clear that "stretches to 325 pages [and is] quite a thorough piece of work," Scotland Yard says.

Shetland News reported last week that Davis's trial was pushed to May 11.

Scotland Yard says they have been in talks with the New York FBI office to "allow some operational matters" to work themselves out in the United States. As a result, they are delaying the further arrest of hackers known as Kayla and tflow.

In September, Scotland Yard arrested two men, ages 24 and 20, who were suspected of being behind the online identify known as "Kayla." Their names were not released, but they were taken into custoday by officials in South Yorkshire and London. A 16-year-old hacker known as "tflow" was arrested in July for suspected violations of the country's Computer Misuse Act.

The London officials say the names of Kayla and tflow, but they are bleeped out on the file released by Anonymous.

"We have prosecution council making an application in chambers without [the] defense knowing to seek a way to factor time in that won't look suspicious," Scotland Yard says.

Lauster asks how much time they can expect, and Scotland Yard says ideally eight weeks, but six weeks would be fine, too. That "gives us more time to examine the chat logs," Scotland Yard says.

U.K. officials then go on to discuss a 15-year-old hacker who claims to have taken responsibility for the November hack of Valve's Steam gaming forums. The teenager, who goes by the name "tehwongz" online, is "just a pain in the bum," Scotland Yard says.

Lauster expresses an interest in the intel Scotland Yard has on tehwongz and says the Baltimore office is leading the charge.

If tehwongz actually did carry out the Steam hack, Scotland Yard will likely pursue charges, "but if it's bragging, we'd probably leave [it] with local police, who don't have a lot of interest."

On Twitter, Anonymous boasted about the hack. "The #FBI might be curious how we're able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now. #OpInfiltration," @AnonymousIRC tweeted.

According to the New York Times, Anonymous accessed the call because a foreign police official who received the conference call invite forwarded it to a personal account, where it was intercepted by Anonymous.

About the Author

Before joining PCMag.com, Chloe covered financial IT for Incisive Media in NYC and technology policy for The National Journal's Technology Daily in Washington, DC. She has held internships at NBC's Meet the Press, washingtonpost.com, the Tate Gallery press office in London, Roll Call, and Congressional Quarterly. She graduated with a bachelor's deg... See Full Bio

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